Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (10th Dáil) – Wednesday, 15 May 1940

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That a sum not exceeding £928,982 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941, for the Salaries and expenses of the Offices of the Minister for Lands and of the Irish Land Commission (44 and 45 Vict., c. 49, s. 46, and c. 71, s. 4; 48 and 49 Vict, c. 73, ss. 17, 18 and 20; 54 and 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 57; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38, and c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Nos. 27 and 42 of 1923; 25 of 1925; 11 of 1926; 19 of 1927; 31 of 1929; 11 of 1931; 33 and 38 of 1933. 11 of 1934; 41 of 1936; and 26 of 1939).

—(Minister for Lands).

Captain Giles

On the last day, I dealt with the futility of the migration scheme as it is being carried out at present. I shall now deal with a few outstanding cases which have cropped up in the last few years and which the Minister has overlooked or else refused sympathetically to consider. The Connolly case has been cropping up here for the last three years. The Minister for Lands at the time gave us more or less a guarantee that he would investigate the case and, if anything could be done, that he would do it. The case stands as it did three years ago when this widow lost her large farm and never got even £1 for it. That was a case of absolute confiscation. She had a married nephew living in the same house and this man has made repeated applications for a farm in the vicinity to compensate for the land which he should have got when the farm was taken off his aunt. He has got no consideration and it looks as if he will get none. I ask the Minister to let us know how the case stands and if any justice is to be done to the widow or her nephew.

In Dunshaughlin area, another case has arisen in connection with a man who, through no fault of his own, got into trouble with the banks and happened to go down. The farm was taken over by the Land Commission for division, and this man was not even considered by the Land Commission, although he had a wife and family. To-day his farm is divided up, and he is living in some place in Dublin, while his wife and children have to live in London. They cannot maintain a home because they have no means. It was very unfair that the Land Commission did not consider this man's case, because, when he was living in Dunshaughlin and doing well, he gave good employment and worked his farm in a very good manner. The house which he occupied is now being used as stables for the migrants from the West. In justice to that man, he should have got an economic holding on his own farm, and it was mean of the Land Commission not to consider his claim. New houses have been built for the migrants, and the house which this man occupied—a good two-storey house —has been turned into stables for them. I ask the Minister to state, even at this late stage, why Mr. Fagan, of Dunshaughlin, was deprived of a holding on his own estate. He fell on bad times, but the bad times were not his fault, and the same thing happened to a great many people.

Where the sons or relatives of evicted tenants are reinstated in the holdings of their ancestors, they are not entitled to the same facilities as migrants. Surely, they should be fixed up with a plough, a cow and a sow, the same as the migrants. When these people are re-instated, it is very unfair to have opposite them men who are not the descendants of evicted tenants, but who get all the facilities for the making of proper farmers, while they do not get any such facilities. They should get the same facilities as the migrants, now that they have been reinstated by a native Government.

In my county a big problem is looming up for this Government or the next Government. That is in connection with the new so-called economic farms, given out in the last six or seven years. What is to be done with them? In some cases the people are living in the houses. In other cases nobody is living in the houses, and the grass is growing at the doors. In many cases, the new tenants have not a penny in their pockets and have no outlook, economic or otherwise. They are trying to get work on the roads and under relief schemes. What is to be done with these holdings? They are an eyesore, and something should be done about the matter. Is the Minister going to put these people out of these houses or is he going to give them facilities to work the land? I myself am definitely against any new form of eviction in these times, and I think the Minister should investigate some of these cases and see if anything can be done to provide them with some little stock. It is terrible to see that land in its present condition. Some of it should never have been given out in the haphazard way it was to men without a penny in their pockets. We all know that these farms were given to true and loyal members of the Fianna Fáil clubs. That is definitely why they got them. There is no use in saying that that is a lie, because we know it definitely. In the same areas there were farmers' sons with £200, with farm implements and with the help of their fathers' horses and ploughs, and they were denied even an acre of land. Farmers' sons who had been taking land on the eleven months system for a number of years, and who were thriving, would not be considered for these holdings while, right beside them, "derelict" men, some men who drank out the little farms they had, because they were loyal and true to the clubs, obtained farms. They were "derelict" before they got the land, and they have not a penny now and have no outlook. Many of these men are working on the public roads, while unfortunate men who have no land have to be denied work on these roads. An investigation is very badly needed in my county in connection with this state of affairs. The man who has got an economic farm from the Government should either work the farm or get out. If he is not to get out, the Minister should provide him with facilities so that he can work the farm. At present, the position is a public scandal and a national loss.

Mr. Childers

In connection with the Estimate of the Department of Lands, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the whole problem of land settlement in this country in conjunction with the question of competition on the part of others who are exporting agricultural produce. Land settlement and land division have been accepted by both sides of the House as inevitable policy. The Opposition differ from the Government as to the value of land division only in degree, and not as a matter of principle. Enormous quantities of land have changed hands in the past 20 years and, perhaps, in discussing any Estimate for the service of lands, we should consider whether the effect of land division does not require further examination of the whole position of the small farmer.

The hard fact that we have to face is this, that our competitors in agricultural exports represent two types of agricultural organisation. The first type consists of farms getting larger and larger every year, more and more mass production, more and more factory products for the purpose of production and an organisation of marketing which is operated in the most scientific manner possible. One might take, for example, the large farm system in England and New Zealand. In New Zealand the farms are no less than 1,000 acres and the farming operations are carried out by machinery. Of course, there is a very large number of agricultural labourers employed and the system is entirely different to the system here. In contrast we have another type of rival, such as a country like Denmark where the holdings have been constantly decreasing in size since the beginning of the century. The vast majority of the holdings are small and there again you see developing with the growth of the small farm the most intense co-operative system in marketing. They found that necessary in order to overcome the increased cost of production arising from small farms.

In order to overcome their difficulties they found it essential to combine together for marketing purposes, for the purchase of raw materials, for the production of certain kinds of crops and for the distribution of those crops in the various markets. As a result, the Danish farmer who might suffer through having a 30-acre farm and the consequent inability to use machinery of his own, shares machinery with other farmers, and he makes a profit on his bacon up to the time it goes on board ship bound for some other country owing to the fact that he has shares in the bacon-curing establishment which cures his bacon.

We who have decided on the small farm policy must face the fact that our successful rivals who have been improving at our expense for many years have adopted one of these two systems and the position is that we are continuing to provide enormous quantities of land without examining at the same time the question of the organisation under which the farmers, who are going to take over the small farms, operate. I do not think we have examined sufficiently that all-important question. I believe it is a problem that cannot be deferred very much longer.

Why should we be the exception in the entire world in so far as our methods of export are concerned? Is there anything in this country which can enable us to say that, although every rival of ours either has small farms with intense co-operation or large farms with intense machinery development, we can go on without either of these systems; that we can develop in our own peculiar way; that there is something remarkable in our produce or our cost of production or our method of living which enables us to avoid escaping those conclusions that other countries have come to? I am speaking of a long-term problem. We have been going into this land position for many years. It is time to reconsider the whole matter.

If one examines the question of how our cattle population has fared in past years on large and small farms, one finds that apparently the small farmer has not yet been able to advance as quickly as the large farmer in respect to the number of beasts maintained on his land. To give one example, I might mention that in the period 1912-1931 there was an increase of 16 per cent. in the number of pigs in this country, but there was an actual decrease in the number of pigs on farms of less than 30 acres, whereas there was an increase of 86 per cent. on farms of over 200 acres. These figures are symptomatic of our animal population, and they deserve serious consideration, having regard to the fact that we are going in for the small farm policy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but I think he seems to be rather more concerned with the Vote on Agriculture than the Vote dealing with the Land Commission.

Mr. Childers

I am merely leading up to the suggestion that the Minister for Lands might make some suitable inquiry into the results of the land division policy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may continue.

Mr. Childers

I was about to indicate that the small farm policy, in the light of the present world competition, demands consideration as to whether there should not be some form of organisation accompanying it. That leads me to my principal point. Would the Minister envisage the possibility of making an inquiry into the social and economic results of the different types of land division which have been carried out to date in this country, taking them in their different forms — the additions to uneconomic holdings, the creation of new holdings and the creation of migrant holdings? Would he consider it advisable at this stage, having regard to what is going on around us in the world, making an examination into the degree of migration in areas where there has been land division on a large scale, before and after land division; the number of persons forced to leave farms in those areas now as compared with the preland division period; such matters as the total number of stock kept on the farm now as compared with the preland division period, and a general social inquiry into the results of land division?

My own belief is that there would be what might be described as a mixed bag. It would be found that much good had been achieved and, on the other hand, that there was much left to be done. I believe the general conclusion would be that the Department of Lands, in its efforts to promote land division, should make an effort to promote co-operation, a matter which, I understand, has long been under discussion by this and the last Government. In other words, in order to help the small farmers to compete in world markets, particularly those who have for the first time entered into possession of their land, they should have given to them opportunity for co-operation. If we are going to go on competing in foreign markets, we cannot long delay that decision. Has the Minister ever considered the possibility of an inquiry of that kind? We all accept the necessity for land division. We believe in it, for one reason or another, looking at the world in its present state, and the question is, are we doing all we can to enable our people to export to a greater degree, particularly at the end of this world conflict?

Mr. Belton

I was interested and slightly amused at the last speaker's method of approaching this problem. Quite obviously he approached it with the urban or city mind. He had no regard whatever for what is a big matter in Irish rural life—namely, the sentiment that attaches to the land. Whether it is good or bad for this country, people settle down on the land to stay there. If the times are good, their circumstances are improved; if the times are bad, the men on the land will tighten their belts, but they will hold on. They have a land sentiment; the home is their home; it was their father's home, and their grandfather's home, going back for generations, and they refuse to be disturbed.

Whether it was this Government or the previous Government or the Government prior to that, that again was the attitude to the question of compulsorily acquiring land and dividing it amongst allottees. But that does not prove that that was a good policy for the nation. I do not belong to the landed gentry of this country. I am the son of a small farmer, and I am viewing this from the purely detached national standpoint. Whether it is this or the previous Government's attitude to the policy of acquiring land when and where they like, I must say this—that some Government will have to sit down, reconsider the position, and ask themselves what credit can attach to the land if a Land Commission inspector may come down in the morning and say: "I will take over this land, divide it amongst A B C and D, and give £x for it even though that £x may not be enough to pay the mortgages on the land at the time." What result will follow from that? Only one result, and that is a result that everybody who gives any thought to the economic and credit position of this country now is aware of—namely, that there is no credit in land at the present time. A farmer of 100 acres of land will not get credit up to £100 for it now. On his own initiative and record and other securities and on his own character he may. But land is no security for any bank. Any bank will tell anybody who is further interested in the matter that that is so. The general policy of this Government is to take land anywhere and divide it up. I presume I am entitled to criticise that policy, and to go back into the history of it. The British Government never took a farm for sub-division from the ordinary farmer. They only took untenanted land. The ordinary farmer was never touched, though that was strained a little bit in the schedule of the congested counties. Outside the congested counties the land of the ordinary farmer was never touched. No one ever thought of acquiring it. A departure from that policy was a great loss to agriculture; it spoiled this country as a whole when that principle was violated. One of the famous principles of the Land League—Fixity of Tenure—went the day that principle was departed from.

An Leas Cheann Comhairle

Might I remind the Deputy that he is dealing with the administration of the Department, and is not permitted to suggest amending legislation?

Mr. Belton

These are general principles and general policy, and now we come to the administration. If the Land Commission want land they can get it in any county in Ireland. Generally speaking, they can get land nearly in every parish if they go into the parish and pay the market prices for it. Why should they not pay the market prices for the land? Why do they not go to the auctioneers' books and buy land from the auctioneers at market prices? They will not. They are not buying land. They are confiscating land.

I do not know, but I would like to hear from the Minister what their policy is when selecting allottees. I take it they start and strip up land, make fences, build houses, and hand over the whole thing as a going concern to men who, as far as I know, have shown no aptitude in the way of farming. I am aware of that state of affairs, and I know as much about it as anybody else. The men who get these Land Commission farms get the whole of the property for nothing. Who respects anything that he gets for nothing? It is not in human nature to do so. These men do not put their backs into the working of the land in the way a man does when he has put his own money into a farm or into a business. If these men do not like the farm they turn round after a while and sell it. If they get only a £5 note for the whole outfit, it is a £5 note for nothing. We were told by the Minister that it costs £950 to fix up allottees. First of all, the Land Commission destroys the credit of the State by taking the land from the original owner at a confiscatory price. Then they give the land to a man who has no aptitude for working it. You put State property in his hand. You give him £950 worth of land. Who would give £950 of his own money for 25 acres of land anywhere? Nobody outside Grangegorman Mental Home would do it. Why, if we are going to have a sub-division of land, not acquire that land in the open market? As it is, we acquire that land at practically whatever price we offer. Why does the Land Commission, with, I suppose, the sanction of the Minister and the Government, acquire, say, 100 acres of land and divide it into four farms of 25 acres each? These farms cost, let us say, £500 a farm. Why do not the Government and the Land Commission say to any prospective allottee who comes along, "That land has cost the State £500 or £600; we will give it to the allottee who we think is capable of working it provided he puts down £200 of his own money." That is what we say to the men who are trying to buy their own houses. Even the State has already dried up in carrying through that operation of advancing money for houses. They did help private citizens to buy their own houses. Why did the State advance £800 to the man who wanted to buy his own house? They did it so that the man would have an interest in his own house, and his own money would be safe. If the Land Commission did the same thing in the matter of farms, a better interest would be taken in these Land Commission farms, and people would make a better effort to make a success out of them. On this business the Land Commission has been losing. But if they insisted on the man who was getting the land putting down some of his own money first, instead of this operation being a loss it would be run to the advantage of the State and show a profit. I cannot understand any Department or any Government in its sound senses handing over, to people who have no qualifications, valuable farms of land. I could show the Minister several allottees who had no qualifications for land, and yet these valuable farms were given to them at a great loss to the State.

The question of mixing up farming with an alleged attempt to propagate Irish in the Midlands is so ludicrous that one would hardly believe it only they know it to be true. I submit that loss should be borne by the Vote for Education. Do the Government think it good policy to bring men into the County Meath for the sake of the Irish language? The Government have given them farms, set them up in houses, given them furniture, hens and chickens, and 30/- a week for a year. Are not the people of the country being robbed by that policy? Is not a policy of that kind as much robbery of the public purse as the robbery of the community of £500 by some fellow this morning? What good is it going to do? Deputy Childers spoke in very general terms. I was waiting to see if he would come down to earth. He did not, because, I suppose, like the parachutist, he did not know where he was going to land.

We talk about increased food production. Are you going to get that from these small farmers? If agriculture in this, as in other countries, is to hold its own, it must keep pace with the advances in the science of production. Does anybody who knows anything about agriculture suggest that you can produce cheap food on a 25-acre farm and give the owner of it anything but slave conditions? Sir Antony MacDonnell, on one occasion, gave a definition of an economic holding with which, I am sure, the Minister is familiar. He said that it depends not so much on its size or valuation as on its position with regard to the track of trade. I know men who are living on a couple of acres in a specially favoured position in the County Dublin, and they are making a comfortable living for themselves. There is a community of over 2,000 of them living comfortably, entirely out of their holdings which, on the average, do not exceed two acres. But they are in a distinctly favourable situation as regards the type of land they hold, in their proximity to a great market, and above all, in the tradition of technical skill that they possess as regards the working of that land. But, taking the country as a whole, that does not apply. The breaking up of alleged ranches of 100 or a couple of hundred acres into 25-acre farms will create for this Government, or for any Government that attempts it, not perhaps a problem for to-day, but one for the future. Where is wheat going to come from off a 25-acre farm? How is it to be tilled, except by the primitive method of spade and shovel? A pair of horses would eat all that would be produced on that farm.

There is also the question of breaking up good grazing land in counties like Meath and Westmeath. You have in these two counties some of the best grazing land in the world. In a particularly favourable year you might be able to till it, but it is such stiff land that it would be very difficult to cultivate it in a wet season. The land in these two counties provides a market for the store cattle raised in the West. Therefore, if you break it up, you may be destroying a very valuable asset. The Minister and his Department are very partial to migration. I have no hostility to migration, but, speaking for my own constituency, I cannot see why a man, whether he is a congest or a landless man outside the County Dublin, should have prior claim to a parcel of land in this county over a County Dublin landless man. Speaking from the national production point of view, no man can farm the land of a county better than the man who has been trained to farm in that county. I can speak from a dual experience. I speak, not as a County Dublin man, but as one who has farmed in a small way and in a big way in this county.

I am satisfied that if a man comes to this county to farm, full of the knowledge that he knows farming conditions here, there is nothing surer than that he will fail. The land in the County Dublin, the nature of it, marketing conditions and everything else have got to be learned, so that if a man starting to farm here is so ignorant that he does not know his own ignorance of the agricultural conditions prevailing in the County Dublin, he will surely be a failure.

Those are the people that the Minister is proposing to transplant to the County Dublin, and to crush out County Dublin men. I, as a County Dublin representative, want to enter my protest against that. Also, as a County Dublin representative, and as the son of an evicted tenant in the plan of campaign days, I want to enter my strong protest against the treatment of the Boylan family in Rush by the Land Commission. I hope that I am not too late to secure for that family their last request. They were evicted out of their farm 50 years ago. The Land Commission have just divided it. They refused to give the Boylan family one inch of it. The family's last request is that they should get the old house in which they were born. They are prepared to buy it. I want to put it to the Minister and to the Land Commission that if they refuse that request it is one which, in my opinion, even Clanricarde himself would not have refused. The family offered to buy the farm back, but the Land Commission would not sell it to them. They have given it to somebody else—to strangers—for nothing. The statement has been made by the Land Commission—I say it is not true—that the Boylans have not got the money to work the land if they got it. I can guarantee that they have. That was guaranteed to the Land Commission, but the family's request has been turned down. I hope the Minister will take a note of that. I hope that if the land cannot be saved for the Boylan family that the house and some of the paddocks around it will. This family was evicted out of over 100 acres nearly 50 years ago when the six or seven members of it that survive were mere children. My recollection of Irish politics has been that every popular movement in this country always put the reinstatement of the evicted tenants in the foremost place in its platform. I know that the present Government have not been backward in making that claim in their political programme, and I now ask them to put it into practice and reinstate the Boylan family.

I have had a large experience of agricultural workers, and I can say that the agricultural worker in County Dublin has no peer in the labour ranks in Ireland. An agricultural worker can be given a pair of horses and told to plough or till a field. He need only be told the field that he is to go into, and he will do it. He is a good worker and a good timekeeper. He will, of course, make you keep to your bargain and he can fight for his rights; he has fought for them both with me and against me. Now, when land is being divided in County Dublin, these men are being turned down and the land is being given to strangers. What claim has a congest from any other county with five or six acres of land which is superior to the claim of the agricultural worker who has worked all his life in the County Dublin? I cannot see how the congest has a prior claim to that land. If there is to be any comparison made, the man who has no land should have a prior claim to the man who has a little land. The agricultural worker knows how to work that land. I will guarantee to the Minister that I will get local agricultural workers to take any land that will be divided in County Dublin. If he puts the cost to the State on the parcels of land, I will guarantee that I will get agricultural workers in County Dublin who will put down 20 per cent. of the cost to the State and work the land. They have done it at Fieldstown. Why then is the Minister going to other counties and bringing people to County Dublin? I hope he will reconsider that matter.

Recently I have been invited to meetings in County Dublin with other Deputies, and I hope these other Deputies will get up and repeat what I am saying, because our unanimous expression of policy at these meetings was that we were opposed to this migration into County Dublin until there were no County Dublin people able and willing to take land and work it. I will go further than any conditions required by the Minister. I will guarantee that it will be an economic transaction for the Land Commission, and that it will cost them nothing to divide the County Dublin lands they have in hands amongst bona fide agricultural workers in County Dublin; that they will put down 20 per cent. of the cost to the State, and pay the remainder in terminable annuities. I hope the Minister will reconsider his policy in that matter.

I know it has been reported to the Minister that certain officials dealing with the division of land in the County Dublin have not been acting fairly. I make no such allegation. I mention it only for the purpose of disassociating myself from any such allegation. Any time I ever went to the Land Commission I found them ready and willing to answer all inquiries in a courteous manner, and it would not be fair that the impression should go out that I attended a meeting where any official was criticised. I am quite satisfied that the officials carry out their orders. I know that when I was an official I had to carry out my orders. It is because I did not carry them out that I am not an official now.

Deputy Childers talked about some system of co-operative marketing being worked side by side with land division. Co-operation amongst the agricultural community in this country has never been a signal success and I do not think it ever will, because, temperamentally, we are not co-operators. If the sub-division of land is persisted in, how are we to deal with the problem which will be created by a lot of small holdings competing in a world where food is being produced by mass production?

Even in a broken season, so long as a tractor is kept in condition it can be kept going. In good weather you can make the most of it and in a day you can do more work with it than an army of men can do by primitive methods. If we are going to produce corn in this country, I see nothing for it but the mass production method. It cannot be done otherwise, unless you go back to the days of potatoes and salt and buttermilk and then burn the land to get manure. We must face modern conditions and consider our competitors. Our competitors in wheat growing are tillage ranchers and we must try and adopt their methods. If we are to grow corn successfully, we will have to adopt their methods. I am not arguing that we should grow it, that is another matter altogether. But if we are not going to till, what living can anybody make out of rearing live stock on a 25-acre holding? The thing would not bear ten minutes consideration. If anybody is going to live out of a 25-acre holding, he must cultivate it. It is so small, that economically he can only cultivate it by primitive methods. Are we going to go back to these primitive days? I do not say that that is the policy of the Land Commission, but it is an agricultural development inherent in the sub-division of land. I would like to see an attempt made to have community farming. It seems to be the only way out, but before it starts I may say that I do not believe it will ever be a success here.

Mr. Corry

Tell that to Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Belton

I will let the Deputy lecture Deputy Dillon about that. Perhaps he will learn something from him. Inherent in all Irish farmers is the feeling of being independent. I do not know that community farming would suit this country. I should like to see it tried. It is the only system of farming, if it were successful, that would enable small holdings to be worked economically and face world competition. I do not know whether the community on a communal farm would agree very well. I do not think they would, because the implements would belong to nobody in particular, and when a fine day came everyone would want them—the fellow with the best "pull" would get them, while the fellow with the least "pull" would be late with his work, and would get them on a wet day.

The overhead charges on land are altogether too heavy. They would weigh heavily on small holdings. That would be a question for the Department of Agriculture and not for the Department of Lands. For the security and for the credit of the State, I believe that any man who works his farm, big or little, and who pays his way, should not be disturbed. He should have as much security in his land as any manufacturer or shopkeeper has in his business. It is for the Minister for Agriculture to frame agricultural policy. He can attune farmers to that policy, and can deal with them whatever way he chooses. A man who owns land, who inherited it or bought it in the market, should not be disturbed. If the Government is given power to disturb farmers, quite obviously there will be no credit in land, and when there is no credit in an industry it cannot prosper. If there is one thing more than another that has agriculture in a parlous position to-day, when it is not able to face the present emergency, it is want of credit. That has been the most potent factor in destroying agricultural prosperity, and the sooner it is changed the better. If the policy I am advocating were adopted, and if the Land Commission were given power to buy land in the market, they could buy it in competition with Deputy Corry or anybody else who wanted it. There are plenty of people anxious to sell land quietly, and they could go to the Land Commission and perhaps make a bargain. Plenty of land could be got in that way.

When land is divided, why should any man be set up in industry or in agriculture at the expense of the State? Whatever the cost, the allottees should bear a portion of it. You will get industrious farmers' sons and agricultural workers to put down a deposit if they get land, and they will work it. Allottees can be got for every acre of land divided. The present policy is too expensive. There is too great a loss to the State. When there is not an investment by the individual concerned, he has not the same interest in it that he would take even if he only put £20 of his own money down.

I cannot understand the fencing policy that is being followed. At present a dyke is dug and a clay ditch is made and planted with whitethorn quicks. I am paying men to level such ditches. Has it ever been computed how much land on 25 acres is wasted in hedges and dykes? That work is at present given out to contract. Why should not the allottee do that work himself? Thousands of men would be glad to get 25 acres and to make the fences. If people do not take that much interest in the land they are getting, what interest will they take in paying annuities or in becoming good farmers? I think the policy of the Land Commission as regards the acquisition of land is injurious to the credit of the State because it destroys the credit in land. I hold that it is not making for good farming, or good crofters, to give people land for nothing, and to make the State foot the bill for all the expenditure, as well as free grants to allottees. Some percentage of the total expense of holdings given by the State should be put up by allottees. Any allottee who is really serious about making a success of his plot will pay up. I know the farm labourers in the County Dublin, and I guarantee that from their ranks I would get men to put down whatever amount the Land Commission would fix up to 20 per cent. of the entire cost if they got land, and, further, I would guarantee that that land would be worked.

I would like the Land Commission to take into consideration the fact that the best type of people to plant on the land are those who have been working it, particularly the land in their own county, and who have a few spare pounds and are prepared to invest them in the future holding. I suggest that for the serious consideration of the Land Commission. I also suggest that the landless men in any county are better entitled to any slice of land that is going in that county than any congests or landless men from outside counties. As far as County Dublin is concerned, from what I heard I hope for the peace of the county that no migrants will be brought in. I did not hear that from publichouse birds, but from hard-working agricultural labourers. At a recent meeting at which such sentiments were expressed the chairman was a farmer and a supporter of the Government. He came from County Tipperary, and with his money he bought a farm here. There is no objection to a man doing that in this or in any other county. He did not come to look for anything. Neither did he get it for nothing.

I make a special appeal not only in the case that I mentioned, but on behalf of evicted tenants. Genuine representatives of evicted tenants should not be turned down for parcels of land anywhere, if only as an indication that we have not forgotten the wounded soldiers of the land war. I include in the appeal not only direct representatives, but the children of those who were evicted 40 or 50 years ago. At least they should be given the old homesteads in which they were born, and that belonged to their families for generations. I think that there is just time to save it, and I hope that the Minister and the Land Commission officials, if any of them are listening——

An Ceann Comhairle

There are no officials in this House.

Mr. Belton

I withdraw the remark. I hope that the Minister will be able to get in touch with the Land Commission officials and, if better cannot be done, at least give the homestead and paddocks around it to the representatives of this family of Boylan, who are, if necessary, prepared to pay the market price for it.

Mr. Everett

I should like to know what the policy of the Land Commission is regarding land division. They have adopted a new policy in my constituency. There they have been acquiring land and letting it on the 11-months system. The Land Commission are themselves the biggest culprits in that regard. Last January, I protested against the Land Commission advertising the letting of land on the 11-months system. The reason for their action was not that there was an insufficient number of suitable applicants. I do not know what the reason was, but, as a result of the Land Commission setting the land by public auction, large farmers were able to outbid the small farmers, thus encouraging men who said on many occasions that they had no desire to live in this State. One large estate of 400 acres, following the example of the Land Commission, dismissed ten or 12 of their employees, holding that they could let their lands on the 11-months system when the Land Commission was doing so with their lands. That estate is holding up the employment of 100 men from the urban areas. The landlord or trustee is an absentee, and the estate is managed by solicitors and agents in Dublin. They are objecting to giving a public body a few acres of that land for the purpose of making a road by the sea. There are two adjoining farms containing over 900 acres, and only three men are employed on them. At the same time, they have held up the making of this road.

We have an Agricultural Wages Board, and, under the regulations of that board, the small farmers and the large farmers have to pay a wage of from 30/- to 32/6. The Land Commission are side-tracking the Act of Parliament. They are employing men from the labour exchange on a 30, 32 or 40-hour week, and they are paying them only 27/- or 28/-, instead of allowing them to work the full 54-hour week and receive 32/6. The Land Commission in Wicklow are playing up to the landlords instead of giving encouragement to the small farmer who keeps his men working during the winter. On these large estates they employ men only by the hour in winter. Then they pay only a small rate of wages. Does the Minister propose to take any action in connection with these big ranches employing only three men? I am not particular whether those who get the land come from Connacht or elsewhere. I have no objection to anybody getting land provided he is an Irishman. I should prefer to see any Irishman getting a livelihood on these lands to seeing absentee landlords holding these big tracts. I would not care whether the men came from Galway, Donegal or elsewhere. There will be enough land for them, while providing for the people in Wicklow who desire land. There are only three men employed on these large estates, to my own knowledge, and the employment of 100 men is being held up. I did not like Deputy Belton saying that the landless men should not be provided with suitable assistance— a couple of horses or a cow. Would it not be better to give assistance to these men on the land than to give subsidies to some of our industrialists who, because of bad management, render no return? There is no objection to giving thousands of pounds to people in the cities for certain undertakings, and when large sums are lost there is no clamour, but a great cry is raised when it is proposed to give a few thousand pounds to unfortunate landless men who get holdings from the Land Commission.

I mention this case so that the Minister will take serious notice of it and try to get the land inspected or divided. The non-division of the land in County Wicklow is not due to lack of applicants, but is simply to give encouragement to the large farmer to acquire more land while not employing any extra labour. Ten families were dispossessed on this estate, and not one man has been employed since then. On these two estates, over 500 acres are in possession of the Land Commission, and they should have some explanation to offer why these lands were put up by public auction after I communicated with them last January, protesting against this action. We were not interested in any particular applicant, but we were satisfied that there were sufficient applicants to warrant the division of the lands. The Land Commission are giving encouragement to the absentee landlord to sub-let his land. I hope the Minister will rectify the wrong done to the people in County Wicklow, and change his policy in connection with wages. If a farmer has to pay 32/6 — which is the road workers' rate in the area—why should not the Land Commission pay the same wages? Because unemployment prevails in the rural areas, the poor men concerned have no alternative but to accept the miserable 25/- or 27/- paid by the Land Commission for the lesser number of hours. That is bad example to give to these ranchers, and the Government should not give such example.

Mr. Cleary

This debate has become very interesting, and it has taken a rather important turn, much more so than in previous years. I think that is only proper, because I regard the Land Commission as one of the most important social services in this country. There are more people, genuine workers, genuine small farmers and labourers, whose hopes are centred in the Land Commission, than there are other sections of the community in relation to any other social service. My hope would be that the Land Commission, realising that, would spare no effort to make the department more active. I had hopes, too, that the assistance of all Parties in the House would be given to the Land Commission, and that remarks would be directed, not towards criticising unduly or harshly the work of the officials of the Land Commission, which is very difficult, but towards encouraging in every way the people to stand in with the Land Commission in the awkward tasks they have to perform, trying to undo the work of Cromwell in this country.

There is an old score to be settled here, and the Land Commission is the one department, more than any other, whose duty it is to settle that score— to undo the work of Cromwell. It will require assistance from public men, particularly when we hear the veiled threats of two Deputies, Deputy Giles and Deputy Belton, about opposition to the social schemes of the Land Commission, and it will require the assistance of sensible Deputies of this House, Deputies interested in the people, to enable the Land Commission to carry out their work and make it a greater success than it has been in the past.

The Land Commission did come to a decision after the start of this war that they would, to some extent, curtail their services so far as the acquisition of land is concerned. I hope they will find it possible at an early date to change that decision and start again with the acquisition of land on a large scale. There are big areas in every county waiting to be taken over by the Land Commission. The people know that the land will be acquired, and must be acquired, for the relief of congestion. It is land that is not being used to its full capacity for various reasons, the principal reason being the knowledge, which must be in the minds of the present owners, that the land will at some stage be acquired by the Land Commission. It is a waste of the soil to leave it in its present condition and I hope that the Land Commission will very soon decide to go ahead again with acquisition work. This country can afford to go substantially into debt in order to acquire land for the people, to plant more people on the land, to acquire areas of land not now being used to the best advantage.

One other thing in which the Land Commission should engage is the resettlement of estates. What Deputy Everett has referred to is happening all over the country, setting land on the 11 months' system until such time as a scheme would be prepared to settle the whole estate. They are setting small parcels of land and they are becoming eyesores in every county. These parcels of land in the possession of the Land Commission are let temporarily to adjoining tenants. I think the Land Commission should devote more time to the resettling of estates and the improvement of the uneconomic holdings. They should endeavour to wipe out the rundale system that is in existence in parts of the country. They should not wait, as is their custom, until the whole estate is ready for resettlement.

I believe that the most economic thing to do is to wait; I believe, in the end, that is the best system; but you must think of the people on whom this hardship is imposed while they are waiting for the resettlement of the estate; you must consider the loss that is incurred both by the State and the individuals while they are waiting for the resettlement. I know places where people are living on rundale holdings. They are anxious to have improvement works carried out and they are anxious for a division of the land so as to give them an opportunity to work the new holdings and to take advantage of the housing grants. In accordance with their custom, the Land Commission wait until they can deal with the whole estate. They do not take into account the losses suffered by the people living in the mixed holdings, people who are unable, because of existing circumstances, to build decent, sanitary houses for themselves. I think the Land Commission should consider introducing some remedy in this connection.

There is one other thing I would like the Land Commission to pay attention to, and that is the question of acquiring land. When a case comes before the Land Commission Court you will find people who have never taken an interest in their land up to that time, except to let or set or waste it or let it go wild, taking a very great interest in their holdings. They go before the Land Commission Court with a great case about what they are going to do if the land is left to them, and very often the court bases its findings on entirely false evidence. I know cases where the Land Commission Court decided that they could not acquire the land because of the case made, and I know the case was absolutely false. People who have not been using their land, and have no intention of using it, make up a case which is, on the face of it, good, and it is accepted by the court. The land is left there, and having got the decision those people go back and cheer and jeer at the people around. The people in the district then believe that the Land Commission have done them a wrong. The land owners make no better use of the land than they did before. There are numbers of these cases in my county, and I am sure there are similar cases in other areas. I think the Land Commission inspectors should make more vigilant inquiries before the Land Commission Court is held, and they should endeavour to ascertain what evidence is going to be given by the party who has got so fond of the land when the time approaches for the case to go before the Land Commission Court.

One thing I do not like being resurrected here is the case of the landless man. Some Deputies on the Opposition benches have all of a sudden got very fond of the landless man. They want the available land in every county to be divided amongst the landless men. That is a bad policy, an unjust policy; it is purely a political ramp and nothing else. Experience alone must have told those Deputies that it is not a workable policy. If we take the county of Meath, and go into an examination of the holdings of land that were given there to landless men, and the use that is made of those holdings by the occupiers, no matter what their political colour—they were of all shapes, types and forms of political colour when it suited—an honest man must immediately condemn that policy of giving land to landless men. I know it is a good political ramp. I could say that same thing and be applauded on every platform I would choose to go on in my own county——

Mr. Morrissey

And was.

Mr. Cleary

No, I beg to contradict the Deputy there. I have done the other thing all along the line.

Colonel Ryan

You are an exception in your own Party.

Mr. Cleary

Speaking for myself, and knowing the problem of congestion in my own and other counties, I hold, as every man must hold, that there are too many families on the land, and that an effort should be made to give those who have to live on the land economic holdings. Do not be creating more land slums. The policy must be to try to remedy the land slum problem, and then if you have land left in Meath, Dublin or Mayo, by all means give it to decent respectable landless men who are anxious to get land and to work it. Experience alone must have taught the Land Commission, as it certainly has taught Deputies in Meath and other counties, that the landless men who got land in the past did not work it. I am now speaking generally.

By that policy you will leave the country in a happier and better condition; you will give hope to the people who have been hoping, like their grandfathers were in the days of the Land League, that at some period they will be placed in reasonable security on the land. That is the best hope for the country and there can be no efficient system of agricultural economy until it is done. We have here the most unwieldy system of agriculture in the world. We have the 1,000-acre farms, the 500-acre farms, and the one-acre farms. We can never have a balanced system until we have a reasonable number of people placed with reasonable security on the land and the people to place on the land are the people whose ancestors were for generations on the land. If you put them on the land they will make a success of it. They will not be depending on sops and doles. You will give them pride in themselves and in their families and in their homes. The Land Commission should not give any heed to the parish tub thumpers who now forget all they stated about the land problem, who forget the 1923 Land Act, who talk about keeping land in County Meath for County Meath people and land in County Dublin for County Dublin people, and who want to give everyone who shouts "Up this" or "Up that" a holding of land, as they have done already. The Land Commission should continue with their migration scheme and they will have the support of every Party in the House. They should not heed those individuals who have an axe to grind, whether politically or otherwise.

Mr. Cogan

In introducing this Estimate, the Minister, I am sure, made a very comprehensive explanatory statement, but, unfortunately, there are quite a number of Deputies who could not follow that statement because it was made altogether in Irish. I want to protest against the action of the Minister in introducing the Estimate entirely in Irish without circulating a translation of the statement to Deputies. It ought to be clearly recognised that not more than 10 or 15 per cent. of Deputies can follow a statement such as the Minister made in the Irish language. It is only just and reasonable that in a deliberative assembly such as this every member should be in a position to follow a statement made by a Minister. For all some of us knew the Minister for Lands might have been outlining in his statement a policy for confiscating all the land in the Twenty-Six Counties. He might have been outlining an entirely new policy, a communist or socialist policy, and none of us would have the slightest idea what his policy really was.

Mr. Hickey

There was no fear of that.

Mr. Cogan

One can only judge by appearances. The Minister appears to be a mild man and would not countenance anything that would be ridiculous. I am only quoting an extreme case, to show how a Minister might outline a policy which would not have the support of Deputies generally, but yet might be allowed to get through without protest, because they were not aware of what was meant. It is only right that a translation of the Minister's statement should have been circulated. I appeal to the Minister on behalf of farmers who got into arrears in land annuities during the depressed period through which we have passed. In many cases these farmers have been met fairly reasonably but, on the other hand, quite a number of them have been harshly treated, particularly the smaller type of farmers, upon whom heavy costs were imposed by handling the collection of the annuities over to the sheriffs. I ask the Minister to review all cases of arrears, now that there is a prospect that agricultural conditions may improve and, wherever possible, to come to an agreement to spread the arrears over a few years to enable them to get out of debt. That is particularly true of small farmers, and I ask the Minister to pay particular attention to their cases.

As far as I am aware there is very little reason for the compulsory acquisition of land in the majority of the Twenty-Six Counties. I do not see any reason why compulsory powers should be exercised until all the land that is available for distribution has been dealt with. I know that a number of holdings in my constituency and, I am sure, in other constituencies also, have been offered to the Land Commission from time to time, but have not been acquired. I also know that a number of holdings acquired some years ago are not yet divided. While that is the position, there is no reason why the Land Commission should resort to compulsory powers. Many Deputies have referred to the size of the holdings created in the division of land. I have considerable experience of land division in my county, not only recently but for the past 20 or 25 years, and I assure the Minister that the best type of holding to create is one having a valuation of £30 or containing about 30 Irish acres. On such a holding the farmer can keep the necessary stock and have the necessary implements to work it independently.

It has been suggested that the best type of farm is one that will support a farmer and his family in decency and in comfort. I do not think that is the principle that should guide the Minister. I think the principle should be to create a unit of land which is the most economic and in the best national interest. A holding with a valuation of £30 or containing 30 Irish acres is one that would more than support one family. That is a holding upon which a farmer could employ a worker all the year round, and it is likely to be more economically and efficiently worked than a holding upon which a farmer has to depend on the co-operation, or the kindness of neighbours for implements, horses and other requirements.

I understand the point made by Deputy Cleary that there could be cooperation between two or three small farmers with regard to implements and horses, but I do not think that there would ever be on such holdings the same degree of efficiency as on holdings where the farmer was absolutely independent, and had his own stock and implements. That class of farmer would not lose time going around to his neighbours to find out when they would be using implements that he required. That is an uneconomic system of farming.

The first principle that should guide the Minister is to create the most economic and efficient holdings, and that is the type upon which farmers would have the implements they required, and would be able to give employment. On such holdings a farmer is not only a manual worker, but also an employer, so that he can appreciate the viewpoint of the worker and the employer. For that reason he should be the best type of citizen. The Minister should take that suggestion carefully into consideration, because estates have been divided recently into holdings that are absolutely uneconomic. As a result there has not been any increase of efficiency. I have experience of land divided 25 years ago into holdings varying from eight to 15 acres, amongst 15 allottees, and ten of these have disappeared. They sold their holdings. That shows that the policy of dividing land into small allotments is not economic, and in the best interests of the State or of the industry. As to the question of suitable allottees for land, it is only right that first consideration should be given to uneconomic holders in the immediate vicinity. Wherever there is an application from the previous owner of land it should receive first consideration.

I have in mind a very glaring case where a farmer purchased a fairly large farm in 1920 for an exorbitant sum. The cost was £2,100, but five years afterwards the place was only worth £700. The farmer paid off £1,700 of the purchase money, but because he was unable to pay the balance the land was taken over and handed to the Land Commission and divided. Although the man had paid £1,700 for a holding, which was eventually worth only £700, he was refused a small allotment. His case has not yet been reconsidered. Cases of real hardship like that should be given consideration by the Department. Uneconomic holders in the vicinity should then receive consideration. If there is more land available, landless men in the district, men who have a certain amount of capital, or agricultural workers or small farmers and their sons who have experience of working land should be dealt with. These are the people to whom land should be given. If that policy were pursued I do not think there would be any loss whatever to the community by the division of land.

In conclusion, I should like the Minister to realise that the period through which we are passing is one in which it may be possible for the agricultural community to contribute a great deal to the well-being of the State—more, perhaps, than it was possible for them to do in the past. For that reason, I ask him, in the collection of annuities, particularly from the smaller farmers, to allow a certain period so as to enable these farmers to recover from the bad years through which they have passed, and from the climatic conditions which have obtained during the past couple of years. If the Minister will bear these facts in mind and allow even a temporary respite to the small farmers, instead of imposing additional costs upon them, I am sure the problem of collecting annuities will right itself in the near future.

Mr. Moran

This Vote is, I suppose, the most important Vote that confronts this House and, of its nature, that must have been so over a period of years. We all know that the land problem has been attacked by various governments and various Acts. We all know that practically all the powers taken through the years have proved insufficient to solve this problem. We should appreciate by now that the land problem is one that must be attacked by some revolutionary means and that, if ordinary legislation, brought to bear on this question throughout the centuries, has now, after our experience, failed, we must, if we can, find some other means to finish the land slum-problem. I divide the land problem as we know it into two main categories—the rearrangement of holdings and resettlement of the people on these holdings and, in the second place, the congestion problem. The Land Commission have on their hands for a large number of years several holdings which they do not give out to the tenants for the reason that, they say, they have not enough land to settle the local problems. I know some estates on which the Land Commission have held lands, which they resumed, over a 20 year period. They are still letting out those lands on the 11 months' system, and they are getting nowhere with the problem. If you approach the Land Commission they will tell you: "We are waiting to get more land" or "we are waiting to migrate some people from that area, because the land in hands is not sufficient to solve the problem." I ask the Minister and the Department to divide any land they have. It will solve nothing, and it will do no good to let out these lands on what amounts to rack-rents. If they have not sufficient land to solve the problem in a particular area, let them give out what lands they have, and settle, at least, a few families.

This problem of congestion affects really only about four counties. If you take out the congestion problems of Mayo, Galway, Donegal and, possibly, Kerry, you have the land question virtually solved. Those are the counties in which you have the greatest amount of congestion, and those are the counties which should be concentrated upon. With an energetic land policy, there is no reason why it should take 200 or 300 years more to solve the problem of congestion. In the constituency I represent, the problem of congestion is one of the most pressing in the country. Even to tackle the outskirts of the problem, we would want to migrate, or otherwise provide for, 2,000 families in South Mayo. This is a problem that will not be abated by small means. It must be tackled as a national problem. When, as a nation, we are prepared to spend huge sums on housing, by borrowing or otherwise, I think that, to solve this problem, we should, if necessary, be prepared to float a loan, which would be well repaid. We talk about slum problems in the cities, and about the danger of overcrowding. We have a greater slum problem on the land in such areas as I represent than you have in any city. You have numbers of people, some of whom should have more sense, and a number of what I might call mutual admiration societies concerning themselves with what they call the "flight from the land". Does any Deputy hold that a farmer with ten children can provide for these children on a little farm of £2 valuation? If anybody has any false ideas about the flight from the land, he should go down to constituencies such as that which I represent and he would be very soon disillusioned. There is a greater land-hunger problem now than ever there was. This business about the "flight from the land" is, to use an expression of Deputy Dillon, "all cod" as far as I can see, because it is impossible for people to maintain ten of a family on a farm on which it is not possible economically to support a single individual. When there are five or six sons in a family on a farm sufficient to support only one son, five or six of them must migrate in order to find employment. They know that they have no future on that small piece of land. They did not exist on that piece of land. They existed through the sweat of their fathers' brows in the potato fields of Scotland, England and elsewhere, and on the earnings of the elderly members of their families who were transferred in the slave ships to other countries.

We have a land problem that must be attacked as a major problem, and the migration of 50 or 100 people is not going to stop it. Bigger methods must be adopted. The only way out I can see for the problem of congestion is migration on a large scale. I have listened to some Deputies talking about dividing up the larger farms in County Mayo. The fact is that there are no large farms left in Mayo to be divided up. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggested that you should migrate people with 60 or 70 acres. If the Deputy knew his own constituency, he should know that practically every farm of that size in South Mayo is already broken up, and that there is no land available which will solve any problem in South Mayo. I was amazed to hear the Deputy express the views he did, representing, as he does, South Mayo. I was particularly amazed to hear the Deputy tell the House that the people of Mayo were not able to farm their own lands and had never seen a plough.

"I am quite willing," the Deputy said, "to believe that if the persons who have lived on farms in Meath and Kildare all their lives see these Connemara people coming up, men who have never held a plough in their lives, they will immediately scream with laughter at the amateurish efforts the Gaeltacht migrants are making. That will last for some little time. In my own vicinity, in County Mayo, a large farm was broken up. People were brought down from the Tourmakeady mountains and that neighbourhood to this farm, which is called Castlecarra. Their neighbours used to collect on Sunday to laugh at the crooked ‘scriobs' where the poor man who was holding a plough for the first time was trying to plough."

It may be very amusing to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney to laugh at the amateurish methods of his own neighbours, but I can tell Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney that his own neighbours and the particular people to whom he refers on that farm at Castlecarra have proved themselves to be genuine farmers and better farmers than is the Deputy himself. Their methods, he says, are amateurish. The people about whom the Deputy talks saw more of farming in the farming districts of England, and learned more about it than many of the people in County Meath and elsewhere, who know very little about farming and who have proved that by coming into the local towns and villages to buy their vegetables.

The Deputy objects to the breaking up of the grass lands of Meath and Kildare. In the same debate he said: "My objection to the breaking up of the grass lands of Meath and Kildare is the reaction it is going to have on the people in the West of Ireland. At present the main source of ready money of the small holder of £8, £10, or £12 valuation in the West of Ireland is the price he gets for his cattle. He sells his cattle to somebody from Meath or Kildare to be finished. He sells them as stores—at present he has to sell them as stores — and these stores are brought to Meath and Kildare and adjoining counties where they are fattened upon the grass. If you break up the Meath farms entirely, you take away the principal market the small farmer has got for his stock...."

Does the Deputy think that the whole basis of farming in County Mayo is for the purpose of sending stores to be finished in County Meath? Does he suggest there never was any market in Mayo except that created by the few Meath men who come down to buy our stores? Surely the Deputy does not know the position that exists in his own market when he makes such a statement? I was really amazed that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, whose opinion in regard to certain things I have had great respect for over quite a long period, and representing the constituency he does represent, should make such outlandish statements and expect people to swallow them. We had markets in Mayo before ever we heard of County Meath. During the economic war we proved that we were a people who were not affected by it; that we were the people who got off lightest with the type of stuff we produced or the type there was a market for, and we were not depending on the Meath people or anybody else in this country.

There was also an argument made here for the landless man. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and other Deputies have made the case here that the migrants from Mayo and Connemara do not know sufficient about farming, and if you migrate them to holdings in Meath or Kildare, that they will not be able to farm economically, not knowing enough about it in Mayo. If Deputies hold that argument seriously, how do they expect us to believe that landless men are going to make a success of it? If there is no case to be made for the migrants from Mayo or Galway, men who have been brought up on the land and who have worked in England, Scotland, and elsewhere, how can anybody make a case for the landless man who knows absolutely nothing about land? How can you expect him to make a success of it when the man bred, born and reared on the land is going to fail simply because of lack of knowledge of the farming methods in Kildare or Meath? The first job the Minister and the Department will have to tackle is that of solving the congestion in those areas, and, if any land is left over after the congestion is relieved—and that is a problem that will take some time to solve—you can give that land to any person you wish. But you must first tackle the vital problem. You must relieve the congestion that exists in areas such as we have in the constituency I represent.

There is one matter I would like to draw the Minister's attention to, and it deals with the question of rearrangement. I view with alarm the taking of inspectors from the Land Commission for the purpose of carrying out the tillage scheme advocated by the Government. I think there are other Departments that could better afford —although I must admit I do not know what the main qualifications would be —to send some of their inspectors to do this work rather than take those men from the Land Commission, particularly the men engaged in the country, I would like to point out to the Minister that a Land Commission inspector must be in a congested area for at least three years before he is capable of putting through a rearrangement system satisfactorily. It is a very technical and difficult problem, because when a man has to go into an area in which one farmer has his land in about 20 different stripes, and has to decide the question of rearranging that for him, taking a piece from one farmer and giving it to another, trying to satisfy every farmer in the village, it is no easy task. It is more or less a special problem in itself, and experience has proved that a young man coming down from the city, or an inspector serving in the Land Commission in counties like Meath or Kildare, is not fitted for that job until he has had at least three years' experience.

I find that, because of the tillage drive here, the Land Commission have taken away several of those inspectors from constituencies such as I represent, and in some cases they have replaced them by young men who will take two or three years to learn their job. I think the Land Commission would be better advised if they left the men who were dealing with those problems in those areas; they would be more efficient and we would get better results. I fear our rearrangement problems in Mayo will suffer by the taking away of these inspectors who knew the job so well. It is unfortunate that the men had to be taken away from the land in the first instance. It will be doubly unfortunate if they are kept away for any length of time because it will have a slowing-up effect on the work of the Land Commission. I am sure the Minister appreciates that the problem of rearrangement is almost as important in counties like Mayo as the problem of migration.

As regards the collection of annuities, I did not think it would be raised on this Estimate, because it is really more a matter for the Department of Justice than for the Minister. At all events it has been dealt with, and I would direct the Minister's attention to this fact, that it is not really costs that are involved; it is a question of the sheriff's fees, travelling to the point where he is to make a seizure.

Mr. Derrig

I have no responsibility in that connection.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a responsibility for the Minister for Lands.

Mr. Moran

The Chair ruled, when Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney raised this question, that it was a matter for the Minister for Lands.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The question of the sheriff's fees certainly is not, and I do not think that was raised before.

Mr. Moran

The question raised was with regard to costs, and the question with regard to the sheriff's fees is contained in the question of costs. It is the matter of the sheriff's fees that raises the question of costs and that gives cause for complaint. At all events, if you think it is not a matter that should be raised on this Estimate, I will not pursue it. We are told that the people from the Gaeltacht, the people from Mayo and Connemara, are not fit to associate with those wonderful representatives of County Meath or the wonderful farmers that they have in Meath and Kildare. I must take exception to the statements made by some Deputies about those people who go to a strange county from small farms trying to eke out an existence. It is a very sad thing that the policy of the Land Commission should not alone be attacked, but that those people who are not able to defend themselves here should be open to the castigation that they have received here within recent times. If the truth were told, I think that notwithstanding the slurs thrown upon them in this House, these are people who have returned and are returning to the lands from which they were driven. They have had a very good tradition in the counties from which they come and I believe that they will prove an ornament and will prove themselves worthy citizens in the counties to which they have gone.

Some Deputies here have thought fit to cast slurs of every possible kind on the migrants from the West who have been given land in Meath. A number of references has been made about them. I think it was Deputy Giles who suggested that they were people whom we wanted to get rid of down in the West of Ireland. On the contrary, those people were picked for their integrity and for their good knowledge of husbandry. These Mayo migrants have proved good and capable farmers, and I think the Land Commission will confirm what I am stating about the Mayo and the Connemara migrants, who are well worthy of the trust of the Land Commission. The Deputy cast slurs, I think on these people and on their ancestors, but I tell him there may be greater bars sinister on the escutcheons of many of the families living in Meath than on the families of these people, and some of the people of Meath may be a lot poorer in lineage, tradition and character than any of the people mentioned. These migrants from the West and their families have been in Connemara and Mayo, and the West generally, for generations, where they were living in the bogs and mountains. I am sorry indeed to find this sort of thing introduced into the House—the old idea that the man from across the hill is to be regarded as a stranger. It is a sorry thing to find that we have not sufficient charity in speaking of people who are as good as ourselves if not better. All these people have been accustomed to work. They have been brought up on farming all their lives. When they come back now to Meath they are only coming back to the land of their ancestors, from which they were driven. They are able to show the people of Meath and of the other counties of Ireland that the men from the West are able to hold their own. These men were driven out of Meath, and the other richer counties many generations ago, and I am glad to see them back there again.

Mr. Nally

There are a few cases to which I wish to refer, and I want specially to draw the attention of the Minister to them. First of all, I wish to condemn strongly the action of the Land Commission in not taking over certain lands in Mayo. I want to know why the estate of Lord Oranmore and Browne at Castlemacgarrett, Claremorris, was not taken over for the relief of the acute congestion existing in the electoral divisions of Crossboyne, Caraun, Ballindine and Kilvine. There are over 2,000 acres on that estate which has been let in grazing for the past 20 years, and as I say it is surrounded by those electoral divisions where acute congestion exists. In Kilvine and Crossboyne there are at least over 20 persons within a mile or so of the estate with valuations under £5. That land should have been taken over long ago and divided amongst these people. There were up to very recently ten tenants who were getting turbary on that estate, but of late his Lordship thought it proper to eject them from that turbary.

I am aware they had been cutting turbary there for the last 25 to 40 years. Applications have from time to time been forwarded to the Land Commission asking them to acquire the whole of the estate, turbary and all. The need for turbary in that area is very great indeed. I know the people have to go five or six miles away to get turbary. There was a scheme proposed for the dividing of the lands held by Messrs. Mellet, Crossboyne, on the Ward Estate. This happened as far back as 1924 when these lands were taken over. There are about 400 acres on that farm and it is sorely needed for the relief of congestion in the townlands of Kilscaghagh and Curraghadoey. In these townlands alone there are 20 tenants whose poor law valuations are under £3 each. Nobody knows what is the cause of the delay. I think that is a case into which the Land Commission should look immediately. It is a long time ago now since the scheme was first made out about these lands.

Mr. Corry

How much land is in it?

Mr. Nally

About 400 acres. I am speaking of the Ward estate in Crossboyne. As I have already said it was acquired by the Land Commission in 1924. The lands were acquired for the purpose of providing people in that district with economic holdings but not an acre of that land has been divided yet.

Mr. Corry

And your Party were here in power eight years after that.

Mr. Nally

And Deputy Corry's Party have been here for the last eight years and they have done nothing about it yet. It is only last year that the County Council of Mayo unanimously passed a resolution asking the Land Commission to act about this matter. The Deputy who spoke before me, Deputy Moran, subscribed to the resolution of the county council requesting the Land Commission to take over very large parcels of land in that area. Nothing has been done since. The Mayo County Council passed a resolution asking the Land Commission to take over a farm near Castlebar. This is a farm of 400 acres and it is held by Doctor Browne who is out in Australia. On that land there has been neither rent nor rates paid for the last five years. We have repeatedly asked the Land Commission to take it over and divide it amongst uneconomic holders but the Land Commission will do nothing. Who is responsible? I hope now that the matter has been brought before the Minister he will look into it at once. A memorial was drawn up and sent to the Land Commission on behalf of the congests in that area within the last four or five years but up to the present nothing has been done. Will the Minister look into it now?

If that matter is attended to it would make economic the holdings of at least 30 or 40 persons in the vicinity. There are also in the vicinity of Aughamore and Crossard between 400 and 500 acres of untenanted land which should be immediately acquired, and in Crossard itself there are about 200 acres. There are over 50 tenants in that parish of Aughamore, with a poor law valuation of under £5 each. Their land is practically useless, all covered with rocks and heather. The Land Commission had already decided to take over a large farm now held by Mrs. Gallaher, Kilmore, but they allowed in a purchaser. That purchaser bought the lands. There is acute congestion there, as I have already pointed out. We have time and time again asked the Land Commission to take over the land but nothing has yet been done. The purchaser is still in possession of that land. Within one half mile of that holding there are a number of people living on little bits of land the poor law valuation of which is under £1 each. There is no great necessity for migrating those people to Meath if there is plenty of land in the vicinity and if the Land Commission take steps to divide it. I am in favour of sending certain people to Meath. With regard to the division of land there is a very large farm at a place called Kilvindoney, Ballyvary. It was taken over ten years ago by the Land Commission. Eight years ago it was decided to divide that land. A cancelling order came down, but I understand that the land was to be divided three years later. The Land Commission purchased another farm in the vicinity of the land that I speak of. The farm which was purchased five years ago was promptly divided, but the one that was purchased ten years ago was left there. The people who would be likely to get some of the land purchased from Mr. Canning were all supporters of Fine Gael. Therefore they would not get a look in. The people who were to get the recently purchased lands were supporters of Fianna Fáil and the land has been divided amongst them. The County Council of Mayo sent up a resolution to the Land Commission requesting them to go on with the division of that land. They will not do it until, I suppose, they have the right type of men in the neighbourhood, men of the political hue that Fianna Fáil required.

I asked some questions some time ago with regard to the amount of land which the Land Commission had on hands at the time in South Mayo. I was informed that they had about 4,500 acres. That was the amount of land held by the Land Commission in South Mayo at that time. Quite a lot of that land is in the parish of Kilcommon, some in Kilvine, some in the Ballyhaunis area, and some in the Castlebar district. Since I asked the question about six months ago I have not heard whether any of that land has been divided. I do not think it has. I understand that the Land Commission have got it still on their hands. If it were divided it would probably relieve about 100 families in the County Mayo.

With regard to the migrants, I asked a question some time ago with regard to the Ardilaun estate in the parish of Cong. There is a townland there called Dringeen. There is a number of poor unfortunate tenants in that district. Practically all the land they have is covered with rocks and heather. They have signified their willingness to migrate or to take additional holdings if they can get them. I know a number of families there whose valuations are very small. In the first case there is a family of six and the valuation is £3; in the second case there is a family of seven and the valuation is £3; in a third case the valuation is £3 10s.; in the fourth case there are 14 in family and the valuation is £4; and in a fifth case there are six in family and the valuation is £3 10s. That is the class of people that you have in the neighbourhood of the Ardilaun estate. I hope the Minister will see that something will be done for those tenants. Some years ago tenants were migrated from off that estate, but the land has not yet been divided. There is not much use in migrating people from land if it is not then utilised for the purpose of relieving congestion.

I hope the Minister will take steps at once to give attention, first of all, to the acquisition of land, secondly, to the division of land, and thirdly, to migration. I know it is costly and expensive to migrate tenants from the County Mayo to the County Meath. I am also aware that people who have been migrated from South Mayo have made good, every one of them, in the County Meath. I can say this that not 1 per cent. of those in South Mayo who got additions to their holdings, or new holdings from the late Congested Districts Board, have failed in the payment of their rents. I think if we are serious about preventing people from flying from the land to England and the big cities, immediate steps should be taken to divide up the land which the Land Commission have in hands and put those people on it. This delay in putting the people on the land should not be allowed to go on for ever.

The late Sir Henry Doran, when he was head of the old Congested Districts Board about 30 years ago, said that the board would have the whole land problem, so far as it concerned the Gaeltacht, settled within ten years. I believe the board would have succeeded in doing that if it had been allowed to function. A great many people are of the opinion that this delay on the part of the Land Commission is more or less inspired from political sources, or directed from political sources, and that the reason why they are not acquiring and dividing land more quickly is because they want to keep the job going on for ever. The present Minister has not been very long in charge of this Department. I hope he will look into these matters and see what can be done.

With regard to the bogs, I want to impress on him that there is a great necessity for giving the people turbary. On the estates in South Mayo of Lord Dillon, Lord Oranmore and Browne and Sir Henry Bloss there are large tracts of the best bog on these estates which should be immediately acquired.

In those areas the Land Commission should take steps to see that the people are provided with turbary. We are all aware of the difficulty there is at the present time in getting coal. The difficulty is likely to become much more severe in the next few months. In regard to certain estates which have been taken over by the Land Commission in the County Mayo and in other parts of the Gaeltacht area, drains and fences need to be attended to. The old landlords used to keep them in repair. In many cases the estates were enclosed by stone walls, and in others by substantial banks. Since the Land Commission acquired those lands nothing has been done to keep the drains and fences in repair. The drains, in particular, need to be attended to. If the Land Commission is not able to undertake this work, or if it is not possible to get it done out of the Land Commission Vote, then I think the Minister should use his influence with the Minister for Finance and get the Commissioners of Public Works to attend to the drainage. At the moment many of those drains are practically closed up. The Minister should see that they are cleaned and restored to a proper condition.

With regard to the rearrangement of rundale holdings, we have a number of these in the parishes of Kilvine and Bakan. You have a number of such holdings on the Ruttledge and Blake estates. I hope the Minister will see that these holdings are re-arranged. In some cases the tenants' holdings are divided up into ten, 15 and 20 parts, and are situate a long distance from the tenants' homes. That makes it very difficult for those men to work the holdings. Something should be done to arrange the land in compact holdings. I have no doubt that the matter could be arranged very easily by the staff that we have at present. I hope the Minister will look into that matter and see if there is any possibility of getting something done in those areas.

In the townland of Ranahard, which is in the Claremorris parish, where there is any amount of land available, there are ten tenants who were promised over and over again by the Land Commission that their holdings would be re-arranged. Their valuation is only about £2. Some 20 years ago certain persons were migrated from holdings there and these holdings are still in the hands of the Land Commission and let for grazing. That should not be allowed to take place. It is time that the Land Commission put an end to that condition of affairs which should not be allowed to go on.

I have mentioned the farm of Ballyvary on Canning's estate as to which I have got a return here from the Land Commission showing the amount which that farm cost them, the amount which they received in rents and so on, and the amount they spent on fencing, drainage, etc. There was a net loss on that farm of £550 over the last ten years, although it has been let in grazing at very exorbitant rents. There is no reason why the Land Commission should be allowed to waste public money in that way. I hope the Minister will look into these matters and see what can be done.

Mr. Hickey

I suppose, as representing a city constituency, it is rather strange that I should talk about land division. But I am very much interested in it because I have known a couple of estates which have been divided in the past ten or 14 years and I must say that the men who got that land have worked it most successfully. Of course they got, not 25 acres, but 35 or 40 acres and the land was good. In some of these places a great change has been brought about in the countryside by these people being put on the land. I have also seen places where men have been given 25 acres of land. While I agree with much of what Deputy Cleary said, I am not, however, prepared to agree that 25 acres of land make an economic holding. After all, we do not want to put a man on 25 acres in the hope that he is going to make it a paying proposition by spending three or four months across in England each year in order to help to maintain himself and his family.

I am entirely in agreement with Deputy Cleary when he states that the land should be given to uneconomic holders. There is a lot of talk at present about people fleeing from the land and what we want is to make the holdings of those at present on the land economic. I have known landless men who have been given parcels of land up to 30 and 35 acres. Some of them are agricultural labourers and they have made a success of their holdings mainly because their friends helped them out with capital and also in working the land. I do not agree with Deputy Giles when he comments on the Government giving financial aid to men who have been placed on the land, whether landless men or small farmers' sons. Money could not be better spent than by placing people on the land and enabling them to work their holdings successfully. Anyone who travels through the country must be impressed by the absence of small farms. I have travelled through Meath, Westmeath, Kilkenny and Tipperary recently and it was regrettable to notice the large tracts of land which were devoid of people. If the country districts are not prosperous and if the people have not land to work you cannot have prosperity in our cities and towns.

Comment has been made on the fact that some men only got 20 acres of land and could not work it successfully. Some Deputies suggested that there should be co-operative farming. I think the Government should try the experiment of co-operative farming. I know an estate which was divided up between a number of men. The land was rather poor and I must admit that a good many of them have now disposed of the land because they were unable to make a success of their holdings, due to lack of capital and the fact that they were not able to stock it. They met with hard times and had to give up the land. I have here particulars of an experiment in co-operative farming in Wales. The Government bought a farm of 750 acres on which they placed 67 settlers. They built houses for these men and work is carried on under three charge hands and a manager. Each charge hand has 20 men under him. There are glass-houses covering three acres on that farm. They have 400 pigs, 1,000 head of poultry, rising to 2,000 during the table chicken season and they buy as many as 400 sheep at the end of the summer. Last year that farm showed a net profit of £1,150. Out of this, £250 was put to reserve, £300 to reserve for income-tax, leaving £600 to be divided amongst the men. The average per man was approximately £9 per head, in addition to the weekly earnings of £2 5s. per week on an average. Each man has a splendid five-roomed house with bath-room, hot and cold water and inside W.C. for 4/- per week and there is a free issue of vegetables, which consists of ½lb. per head per day of whatever vegetable is in season and ¾lb. per head per day of potatoes for each member of the family. I have known farms of 1,000 or 1,500 acres which have been divided up amongst a number of men. If in such cases we had this system of co-operative farming, I think we would not have so many of the complaints which we have had. Some of these I believe were most unjustified. Some of the statements made by Deputy Giles were, I think, a slander on the Irish people and should not have been made. If this co-operative system were adopted in some cases I believe that the land could be used more successfully.

I agree with Deputy Cleary that the Land Commission is one of the most important and one of the most successful social services in this State, but like him I am afraid that we have not sufficient land available for all the landless men. I have often wondered where land will be got for all the landless men that we hear about. I heard the Deputy say that there were 2,000 families in Mayo looking for economic holdings, and I agree with him, that while we have farms of three acres, ten acres and 1,000 acres we will not have a balanced land policy. I know places in parts of the country where some landholders have whole townlands, where there has been no tillage for years. I know one farm containing 666 acres from which 18 or 19 families were evicted. I have often wondered if it is advisable to allow a few people to hold 600 acres while large numbers of other people have to live on rocky patches of ground on the hillsides. The Land Commission are not dealing with the question as vigorously as they might. I am also inclined to think that land which has been given to some people has been bought too dearly, and that some of those who got it have made a case against acquiring land. I am afraid the Land Commission has been too lenient with them. I have no sympathy with people who get land and who do not make good use of it.

When dividing land in future I consider that an area of 25 acres is rather small for a holding. I do not believe that any real progress will be made by putting people on holdings of that size, on which they have to maintain families, whether large or small. I think the Land Commission will have to consider the size of the farms rather than the size of the families. I know several people who are living fairly comfortably on farms of 40 acres. They are hard working and industrious people, but I think they are always too near the margin of poverty and too hard pressed to make a living. I do not think they could live out of 25 acres. In the division of big estates where a number of men may be thrown out of employment co-operative farming should be tried. It was successfully tried in the instance I mentioned in Wales where miners were put on the land. The complaints I heard were from people anxious to get land, that the Land Commission was not dealing vigorously with the question.

Mr. Corry

When the Land Act of 1938 was introduced several instances were given here of owners who were evading the acquisition of their land by the Land Commission. It was understood then that no matter what happened these holdings would be taken over by the Land Commission. They are a liability on the people and, in the majority of cases, they were grabbed holdings, from which people of whole parishes were evicted. They had to go to the mountain-sides in order that these big estates would be made. Many families are eking out a living on the mountains, on holdings of 20 or 30 acres on which they have to pay, not only their own outgoings but the rates and annuities due by the grabbers. It is time to stop that. I expressed the hope in this House on several occasions when the Land Act of 1938 was going through that the Land Commission would acquire these estates. On the Foley Turpin estate there are 470 acres on which £1,000 is owing in rates to Cork County Council. I do not know the amount of the annuities owing. On the Smyth estate, containing 430 acres, there is £580 owing for rates to Cork County Council. On the Rostellan estate, containing 1,300 acres, there is £2,000 owing in rates. On these three estates about £3,580 is owing for rates that poor families living on the hillsides have to pay in addition to paying their own rates. In addition, there is the Flowers estate, containing 750 acres, and also the Clarke estate, containing 700 acres, so that practically in one parish there are 3,650 acres of land available. I do not know the reason for the delay in dealing with them, seeing that a Land Act was passed here, the definite purpose of which was to close all loopholes that were found in previous Land Acts. It may be stated that this land is being tilled. It is not. In the 470 acres of the Foley Turpin estate not a sod has been ploughed.

I invite the Minister to go down and compare our farms.

Mr. Kennedy

I think that we should have only one Cork orator at a time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This debate must be carried on without personal recrimination.

Mr. Corry

I certainly think the Deputy ought to conduct himself. When you meet cases like this, it is only fair they should be exposed.

Mr. Brodrick

Not here.

Mr. Corry

I do not wish to go into that matter further. I have dealt with it fairly fully. I have seen the progress of land division in my constituency for a number of years. Under previous Land Acts, lands were taken over and far more than their value paid for them. They were actually valued twice. The Land Commission valuer went down and valued them. Then there was an appeal to the judicial commissioner and then there was another valuation. The result was that the whole burden was thrown on the unfortunate tenants. I have seen farms on the Gubbins estate, Carrigtwohill, which changed hands five times in the last 20 years. Every fellow comes in, knocks his bit out of it, gets a couple of crops and clears out.

Mr. Brodrick

Those are Cork tactics.

Mr. Corry

That is the position on some holdings. They are holdings on which the halved annuity is three times higher than the first annuity put on neighbouring land. You have the estate I alluded to a short time ago where some generous-minded people over in England came along, when the last war was over, and said the noble soldiers should not be forgotten. They bought land for them and some good-natured gentleman down the country drew about ten times the value of the land he was selling. He put the money in his pocket and said: "God bless you; there is the farm for you." Houses were built and the Land Commission were foolish enough to take over the land. The result is that the halved annuities on these holdings are three times as large as the annuities on neighbouring holdings. I can see no remedy for these cases.

I was delighted to hear Deputy Nally give us a completely new sidelight on the position in County Mayo. I thought, hearing Deputies speak about these congested areas, that there was not a sod of land left high or dry anywhere. Deputy Nally named a number of farms some of which had been in the possession of the Land Commission for five years or ten years. I find there are roughly 5,600 acres in the list of lands mentioned. If there are 5,600 acres available in County Mayo, they should be divided before the people there move out. Perhaps these lands are being kept in the background as little nest-eggs while the people move out while the going is good. If Deputy Nally's statements are correct, that land should be divided amongst uneconomic holders in Mayo before they look for land outside Mayo.

I also made an inspection of those holdings in County Meath about which we have heard so much talk. I went there—in the daylight—about three times. I have only one fault to find with them. In my opinion, the holdings are not large enough to be economic. It is all very well for Deputy Cleary to tell us that the men who survived the economic war were the smallholders with 25 or 30 acres. It was not by the land that they managed to survive it. They survived it by the assistance of friends in America and from employment in Scotland and England. I have been stuck in an old farm since I was 12½ years of age and I know how much land one can manage to live on. Deputy Brasier might, of course, live on one of these holdings because he is an old bachelor——

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until Thursday, 16th May, at 3 p.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 15 May 1940